Colorado Has Seen Much Success Thanks to Cannabis

This New Year’s was considerably different than New Year’s for Colorado back in 2014. On January 1st, 2014 Colorado officially opened recreational cannabis dispensaries to the public and sales began. Since this monumental day Colorado has been the go-to state for cannabis reform. For all of those negative Nancy’s and naysayers who thought that cannabis would ruin Colorado how do you explain an extra 12.8 million dollars being infused into education funding from cannabis taxes? The federal government is constantly cutting education funding. In Colorado there is no worries though because the taxes from legal cannabis sales are there to save the day!

The Numbers Speak for Themselves

In total Colorado has sold an estimated 6 billion dollars’ worth of cannabis as of October of 2018. In total the state has collected $883,885,907 worth of green in the form of cannabis tax revenues. The money that was infused by cannabis tax dollars to Colorado’s education programs was used to create meaningful and impactful programs. High Cost is a youth education and prevention campaign which urges youth to make informed educated choices. It also encourages educated peer-to-peer conversations. 15 of Denver’s public schools have seen training programs and these cannabis tax dollars have help fund 8 youth diversion programs.

Other Significant Benefits

The tax revenue from cannabis tax dollars and the nearly 1 billion dollars in cannabis taxes Colorado has collected since legalization was enacted on January 1st of 2014 is only one side of the spectrum. Colorado has seen an increase in jobs, technological advances, and innovation with entrepreneurship. The cannabis sector welcomes a budding booming ancillary service industry offering jobs of all sorts where previously little to none existed. A global news report shows that Colorado in comparison to states without legal cannabis did not see any significant increase in auto accident fatalities.

Youth Consumption and Arrests Are Declining

Kids in Colorado also appear to stubbornly refuse to consume cannabis as reports show underage cannabis consumption is not rising but rather falling. Arrest rates for cannabis charges in Colorado have significantly decreased allowing police to focus their valuable resources on other areas such as violent crimes, homicides, robberies, and other areas that need much attention. Now it’s time for the rest of the states in the nation to raise their glasses to a toast and bring cannabis legalization to their state in 2019.

Ashley Priest is a mother, a wife, a writer and a medical cannabis patient. She has a passion for sharing education surrounding cannabis with the world to help remove the negative stigmas that still surround cannabis in many places today.